Volume 152 — THE MUSINGS OF MARCUS MULL.

(In the manner of an illustrious Mentor.)

I.

I noted in last week's issue the persistence of the strange story that Mr. Gladstone, in his wrath at his reduced majority in Midlothian, broke chairs when the news arrived. I was careful to add that, as the result of searching investigation, I was in a position to state that Mr. Gladstone never did any such thing. Still I cannot altogether regret having alluded to the story in view of the interesting letters on the subject which have reached me from a number of esteemed correspondents.

II.

As an eminent Dundonian divine, who wishes to remain anonymous, remarks, it is a melancholy fact that men of genius have often been prone to violent ebullitions of temper. He recalls the sad case of Milton, who, while he was dictating his Areopagitica, threw an ink-horn at his daughter, "to the complete denigration of her habiliments," as he himself described it. Yet Milton was a man of high character and replete with moral uplift. I remember that my old master, Professor Cawker of Aberdeen, once told me that as a child he was liable to fits of freakishness, in one of which he secreted himself under the table during a dinner-party at his father's house and sewed the dresses of the ladies together. The result, when they rose to leave the room, was disastrous in the extreme. But Professor Cawker, as I need hardly remind my readers, was a genial and noble-hearted man. I presented him on his marriage with a set of garnet studs. Ever after when I dined at his house he wore them. Nothing was ever said between us, but we both knew, and I shall never forget.

III.

My old friend, Lemmens Porter, whose name I deeply regret not to have read in the Honours List, reminds me of the painful story of Swinburne, who, in a fit of temper, hurled two poached eggs at George Meredith for speaking disrespectfully of Victor Hugo. The incident is suppressed in Mr. Gosse's tactful life, but Mr. Porter had it direct from Meredith, whose bath-chair he frequently pulled at Dorking. Swinburne was, I regret to say, pagan in his views, but, unlike some pagans, he was incapable of adhering to the golden mean. Aristotle, I feel certain, would never have condescended to the use of such a missile, and it is beyond "imagination's widest stretch" to picture, say, the late Dr. Joseph Cook, of Boston, the present Lord Aberdeen, or the Rev. Dr. Donald McGuffin acting in such a wild and tempestuous manner.

IV.

Still we must admit the existence of high temper even in men of high souls, high aims and high achievements. Everyone may improve his temper. We cannot all emulate the patience of Job, but we can at least set before us the noble example of Professor Cawker, who redeemed the angular exuberance of his youth by the mellow and mollifying kindliness of his maturity. Even if Mr. Gladstone did break chairs, we should not lightly condemn him. You cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs. Besides, chairs cannot retaliate.

Marcus Mull.

A Cynical Headline.

"NEW BRITISH BLOW.—BIRTHDAY HONOURS LIST."—Daily Mirror.

We congratulate our contemporary on its terseness. The Times took nearly a column to say the same thing.